The Love of God

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.—1 John 4:16
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My wife asked me, “On a scale of one to ten, how much do you feel loved by me?” I asked her the same question, and we discovered that this is an area where we both have opportunity to grow.

This naturally raises a question: Why can’t we give and receive 100 percent love all the time? What blocks us from giving and receiving love?

Our enemy is selfishness, rooted in the sin of pride, which leads to all sorts of other sins. Our world is robbed of love because we become so full of ourselves. Unity is lost to self-centeredness.

This spirit is strong in our world today. We can be unloving when we sharply criticize others, speak harsh words, or have a secret distaste for others. In contrast to our depraved self-centeredness, God is love. In him there is no selfishness. God’s love is displayed in his great generosity: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

The remedy to our selfishness is love. Love’s source is God, who is love. As we pray for a full deliverance from self, we invite the Spirit of God to fill us with his love. The more the Holy Spirit gains ownership of my life, the more my heart will be filled with real, divine love.